Escape, and Other Essays - Arthur Christopher Benson (free novel reading sites .txt) 📗

so often aware are real and tangible existences, and that impressions of things unseen and unrecognised by me have passed into my brain, so that some secret fellowship has been established. It would be a great joy to me if this could be definitely established; and I am not without hopes that this piece of writing may by some happy chance be the bearer of definite tidings to two people whom unseen I love, and whose thought may have been bent aimlessly perhaps and indistinctly upon mine, but never without some touch of kinship and goodwill.


XI


THAT OTHER ONE

I am going to try, in these few pages, to draw water out of a deep well--the well of which William Morris wrote as the "Well at the World's End." I shall try to describe a very strange and secret experience, which visits me rarely and at unequal intervals; sometimes for weeks together not at all, sometimes several times in a day. When it happens it is not strange at all, nor wonderful; the only wonder about it is that it does not happen more often, because it seems at the moment to be the one true thing in a world of vain shadows; everything else falls away, becomes accidental and remote, like the lights, let me say, of some unknown town, which one sees as one travels by night and as one twitches aside the curtain from the window of a railway-carriage, in a sudden interval between two profound slumbers. The train has relaxed its speed; one looks out; the red and green signal lamps hang high in the air; and one glides past a sleeping town, the lamps burning quietly in deserted streets; there are house-fronts below, in a long thoroughfare suddenly visible from end to end; above, there are indeterminate shadows, the glimmering faces of high towers; it is all ghost-like and mysterious; one only knows that men live and work there; and then the tides of slumber flow in upon the brain, and one dives thirstily to the depths of sleep.

Before I say more about it, I will just relate my last taste of the mood. I was walking alone in the autumn landscape; bare fields about me; the trees of a village to my right touched sharply with gold and russet red; some white-gabled cottages clustered together, and there was a tower among the trees; it was near sunset, and the sun seemed dragging behind him to the west long wisps of purple and rusty clouds touched with fire; below me to the left a stream passing slowly among rushes and willow-beds, all beautiful and silent and remote. I had an anxious matter in my mind, a thing that required, so it seemed to me, careful deliberation to steer a right course among many motives and contingencies. I had gone out alone to think it over. I weighed this against that, and it seemed to me that I was headed off by some obstacle whichever way I turned. Whatever I desired to do appeared to be disadvantageous and even hurtful. "Yes," I said to myself, "this is one of those cases where whatever I do, I shall wish I had done differently! I see no way out." It was then that a deeper voice still seemed to speak in me, the voice of something strong and quiet and even indolent, which seemed half-amused, half-vexed, by my perturbation. It said, "When you have done reasoning and pondering, I will decide." Then I thought that a sort of vague, half-spoken, half-dumb dialogue followed.

"What are you?" I said. "What right have you to interfere?"

The other voice did not trouble to answer; it only seemed to laugh a lazy laugh.

"I am trying to think this all out," I said, half-ashamed, half- vexed. "You may help me if you will; I am perplexed--I see no way out of it!"

"Oh, you may think as much as you like," said the other voice. "I am in no hurry, I can wait."

"But I AM in a hurry," I said, "and I cannot wait. This has got to be settled somehow, and without delay."

"I shall decide when the time comes," said the voice to me.

"Yes, but you do not understand," I said, feeling partly irritated and partly helpless. "There is this and that, there is so-and-so to be considered, there is the effect on these other persons to be weighed; there is my own position too--I must think of my health-- there are a dozen things to be taken into account."

"I know," said the voice; "I do not mind your balancing all these things if you wish. I shall take no heed of that! I repeat that, when you have finished thinking it out, I shall decide."

"Then you know what you mean to do?" said I, a little angered.

"No, I do not know just yet," said the voice; "but I shall know when the time comes; there will be no doubt at all."

"Then I suppose I shall have to do what you decide?" I said, angry but impressed.

"Yes, you will do what I decide," said the voice; "you know that perfectly well."

"Then what is the use of my taking all this trouble?" I said.

"Oh, you may just as well look into it," said the voice; "that is your part! You are only my servant, after all. You have got to work the figures and the details out, and then I shall settle. Of course you must do your part--it is not all wasted. What is wasted is your fretting and fussing!"

"I am anxious," I said. "I cannot help being anxious!"

"That is a pity!" said the voice. "It hurts you and it hurts me too, in a way. You disturb me, you know; but I cannot interfere with you; I must wait."

"But are you sure you will do right?" I said.

"I shall do what must be done," said the voice. "If you mean, shall I regret my choice, that is possible; at least you may regret it. But it will not have been a mistake."

I was puzzled at this, and for a time the voice was silent, so that I had leisure to look about me. I had walked some way while the dialogue went on, and I was now by the stream, which ran full and cold into a pool beside the bridge, a pool like a clouded jewel. How beautiful it was! . . . The old thoughts began again, the old perplexities. "If he says THAT," I said to myself, thinking of an opponent of my plan, "then I must be prepared with an answer--it is a weak point in my case; perhaps it would be better to write; one says what one thinks; not what one means to say. . . ."

"Still at work?" said the voice. "You are having a very uncomfortable time over there. I am sorry for that! Yet I cannot think why you do not understand!"

"What ARE you?" I said impatiently.

There was no answer to that.

"You seem very strong and patient!" I said at last. "I think I rather like you, and I am sure that I trust you; but you irritate me, and you will not explain. Cannot you help me a little? You seem to me to be out of sight--the other side of a wall. Cannot you break it down or look over?"

"You would not like that," said the voice; "it would be inconvenient, even painful; it would upset your plans very much. Tell me--you like life, do you not?"

"Yes," I said, "I like life--at least I am very much interested in it. I do not feel sure if I like it; I think you know that better than I do. Tell me, do I like it?"

"Yes," said the voice; "at least I do. You have guessed right for once; it matters more what I like than what you like. You see, I believe in God, for one thing."

"So do I," I said eagerly. "I have reached that point! I am sure He is there. It is largely a question of argument, and I have really no doubt, no doubt at all. There are difficulties of course-- difficulties about personality and intention; and then there is the origin of evil--I have thought much about that, and I have arrived at a solution; it is this. I can explain it best by an analogy. . . ."

There came a laugh from the other side of the wall, not a scornful laugh or an idle laugh, but a laugh kind and compassionate, like a father with a child on his knee; and the voice said, "I have seen Him--I see Him! He is here all about us, and He is yonder. He is not coming to meet us, as you think. . . . Dear me, how young you must be. . . . I had forgotten."

This struck me dumb for an instant; then I said, "You frighten me! Who are you, what are you, . . . WHERE are you?"

And then the voice said, in a tone of the deepest and sweetest love, as if surprised and a little pained, "My child!"

And then I heard it no more; and I went back to my cares and anxieties. But it was as the voice had said, and when the time came to decide, I had no doubt at all what to do.

Now I have told all this in the nearest and simplest words that I can find. I have had to use similitudes of voices and laughter and partition-walls, because one can only use the language which one knows. But it is all quite true and real, more real than a hundred talks which one holds with men and women whose face and dress one sees in rooms and streets, and with whom one bandies words about things for which one does not care. There was indeed some one present with me, whom I knew perfectly well though I could not discern him, whom I had known all my life, who had gone about with me and shared all my experiences, in so far as he chose. But before I go on to speak further, I will tell one more experience, which came at a time when I was very unhappy, longing to escape from life, looking forward mournfully to death.

It had been under similar circumstances--a dreadful argument proceeding in my mind as to what I could do to get back to happiness again, whom to consult, where to go, whether to give up my work, whether to add to it, what diet to use, how to get sleep which would not visit me.

"Can't you help me?" I said over and over again to the other person. At last the answer came, very faint and far away.

"I am sick," said the voice, "and I cannot come forth!"

That frightened me exceedingly, because I felt alone and weak. So I said, "Is it my fault? Is it anything that I have done?"

"I have had a blow," said the other voice. "You dealt it me--but it is not your fault--you did not know."

"What can I do?" I said.

"Ah, nothing," said the voice. "You must not disturb me! I am trying to recover, and I shall recover. Go on with your play, if you can, and do not heed me."

"My play!" I said scornfully. "Do you not know I am miserable?"

The voice gave a sigh. "You hurt me," it